Late loss stings Raiders

Saturday

Oct 6, 2012 at 12:10 AM

Ian Stanford

Sophomore Tanier Karigan fell to the ground with his hands on his head. The Immaculata Raider crowd had gone from a roar to silence after watching Oskaloosa Bears quarterback Seth Steward leap over the line for a 1-yard touchdown with eight seconds left.The score capped off a 20-14 Oskaloosa upset of Immaculata on its homecoming night — and it stung.“I think they’re shocked. I think they’re disappointed,” said coach Sean Sachen. “Maybe they took them lightly, I don’t know. We’ve talked for three weeks now about this. There are games that we let get away.”After punts and turnovers were the theme in the first half, the Bears and Raiders put on a show in the second, trading scoring drives till the clock ran out. Unfortunately for Imac, the Bears got the final drive, and hence the final score.Early in the contest, the Raiders moved the ball, but had trouble keeping it off the ground. After losing just one fumble this year, they coughed it up twice in the first quarter.“The two turnovers in the first quarter hurt us,” Sachen said. “We were driving and gave one up deep in their territory. And the second one too. We can’t do that.”But in the second quarter, it was the Bears’ turn to commit costly turnovers deep in opponent’s territory. Oskaloosa threw three interceptions, and each time they happened after the Raiders forced the Bears into long passing situations.“Forcing them into pass situations was the goal,” Sachen said. “We did a nice job with that.”The game was scoreless heading into the locker room.But a snoozer went thriller in the second half thanks to the running of both quarterbacks.Bears quarterback Seth Steward led Oskaloosa’s double wing offense with a number of left-side sweeps for big yards. That set up a Bryce Stottlemire 1-yard touchdown run on the Bears’ first drive of the second half.The Raiders answered right back with a 62-yard touchdown drive led by the running of precocious quarterback Drew Sachen. But it was a Sachen pass to Dustin Jostmeyer on third and 11 that kept the drive going. Sachen got the score on a six-yard run up the middle to tie it at 6-6.Oskaloosa scored quickly again, again on the heels of QB Seth Steward. They added a two-point conversion to make it 14-6.On Immaculata’s next drive, it was Drew Sachen right back to the races.Sachen finished with 78 yards on 23 carries and two touchdowns. Jostmeyer added 67 on 15 attempts.“Paul Lednicky was blocking really well on the left side, and we had success over there,” said coach Sachen.Sachen scored from two-yards out, and Jostmeyer added a two-point conversion run to tie it at 14 with six minutes left.The Raider defense couldn’t stop the Bears, however, who drove down the field and scored the game winner with 13 seconds left.Imac, 2-4, hosts Valley Falls next Friday at 7 p.m. in the teams’ opening district playoff game.

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